ASIS International has selected two Haystax school safety clients to present at the security association’s annual conference in late September.

Our ‘Risk Management for School Safety Directors’ panel will consist of Chief John Newman of Hillsborough County (FL) Public Schools, and Zachary Pope, Emergency Manager of Arlington (VA) County Public Schools. Haystax Director of Field Operations Douglas Pasley will moderate the panel.

No school is immune to risk, be it from active shooters or gang violence, bullying, drugs or natural hazards like earthquakes and floods. School district leaders must work with their public safety partners to minimize these dangers, often while operating under significant budgetary constraints. The solution is to first gain a deeper understanding of all campus risks, and then to prioritize preparedness and mitigation solutions for the biggest risks.

This can best be accomplished by conducting safety assessments on each campus. A properly designed assessment highlights individual and district-wide threats and vulnerabilities and identifies the most effective preparedness and prevention measures as well as the resources school safety stakeholders will need to be successful.

Our panelists will focus first on defining the elements of risk – threat likelihood, vulnerability and consequence – and then will describe the unique characteristics of intentional threats, accidental threats and natural hazards.

Next they will present common best practices for conducting assessments and analyzing assessment results to inform budgetary and personnel prioritization decisions at each school and for the district as a whole.

Finally, they will focus more specifically on the emerging need for behavioral threat assessments to anticipate potential risks from current or former students, as a means of helping prevent active shooter and other adverse incidents. In addition to reviewing assessment templates, they will provide suggestions for assembling a threat assessment team and communicating the need for behavioral threat assessments to school leaders, parents and students.

Known as Global Security Exchange (GSX) 2020, the ASIS conference is scheduled for 21-23 September 2020 in Atlanta, Georgia. “Currently,” ASIS said in a statement, “plans to offer GSX 2020 as a live event continue to move forward and as we monitor COVID-19 updates daily, contingency plans are also being considered.”

The Haystax presentation, chosen from over 450 submissions, is scheduled to run from 10:00 – 11:00 AM on Monday September 21. More information and conference venue updates can be found here.

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Note: Haystax has been helping schools, districts and states keep their students and campuses safe since 2014. Learn more about how Haystax approaches the complex task of school risk management by downloading our free white paper, Managing School Safety in the 21st Century here.